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The Holyoke Enterprise’s feature photo for the March page in their 125th anniversary calendar is the First United Methodist Church, an establishment that has had a strong presence in Holyoke since the city’s beginning.

The church first organized July 10, 1887 when a group of people met at the Carnahan residence on the banks of the Frenchman Creek. By November 1887, there was a move for a church building, and thus several hundred dollars was raised and the small white frame structure, pictured above, was constructed at the corner of Furry Street and Phelan Avenue in Holyoke. The cornerstone was laid April 21, 1888.

The congregation first used benches, later replaced by chairs and finally pews. A partition was put in the church about 1905 to cut one long room into two, and in 1906 the church purchased a piano to replace their little organ.

In 1921, the Methodist congregation began making plans for a new church, replacing this white church with the brick building that still sits on the site today. A new sanctuary and additional rooms were built on, beginning in the late 1950s.